It is current practice that for a manufacturer of luxury goods, such as e.g. watches or precious jewelry, to issue a paper certificate of authenticity corresponding to the sold luxury product which is provided simultaneously with the product when the latter is acquired. Such paper certificates use the fact that luxury products of a certain value usually have a unique characteristic, such as e.g. a serial number, which, however, just as the object as a whole, usually is forgeable. Therefore, the producer of a forgeable, valuable object associates it with a paper certificate which reproduces the unique identifier. If the paper certificate is considered to be non-forgeable, authenticity of the valuable object can be established by requesting presentation of the certificate. Of course, the whole authentication relies on the paper certificate being produced by an authorized entity and being non-forgeable. A typical example of the above are e.g. watch brands selling high quality watches together with a paper certificate edited by the manufacturer or reseller and reproducing the serial number of an individual watch.
However, the above procedure inherently poses several problems. First, the above mentioned solution relies on it being technically impossible to fake the paper certificate. It is, however, known that such certificates based on secure paper, watermarking, RFID or other conventional techniques do no longer offer the guarantee of not being forgeable, unless the technical complexity of the procedure applied is enormously high, which on the other hand complicates the production process and renders it very expensive. This has led to the commonly known race between manufacturers of valuable goods and counterfeiters, who also increase their technical capabilities not only of producing falsified goods but also of copying such certificates. Therefore, there is a need for producers of valuable goods to find a technical solution allowing them to produce effectively non-forgeable certificates of authenticity to be handed out simultaneously with an acquired good.
Secondly, the presently known solutions for certifying authenticity of a given physical object do have the further disadvantage that, even if the certificate in the hands of the owner of a given valuable object is not faked, it is difficult and painful for the owner, who does not know this beforehand, to verify it. For example, should the owner of a given object with such a certificate doubt its authenticity, or should be contemplate its acquisition without having it reviewed by an official reseller, it would traditionally be necessary to send the certificate by mail to the manufacturer of the goods or another corresponding entity for verification. Therefore, there is a need for producers of such goods to find technical solutions simplifying this process.
Furthermore, conventional certificates of authenticity of valuable goods using e.g. secure paper, watermarking or RFID usually do only mention the main properties of the product together with the unique identifier, such as the serial number of the product. Once the certificate has been issued, it is no longer possible to flexibly add further information on the product or to easily modify the status of validity of the certificate associated to a given good. Therefore, there is also a need for the producer of such goods to find a technical solution allowing more flexible use and modification of the data contained in the certificate and relating to the goods sold.